


Out of sync & out of time

by Etienne_Lennon



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2019-05-26
Packaged: 2020-03-17 23:59:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18974941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Etienne_Lennon/pseuds/Etienne_Lennon
Summary: A hopeless attempt to fix the end of "Endgame", Bucky's thoughts when Steve returns the infinity stones.





	Out of sync & out of time

**Author's Note:**

> Unsurprisingly, I was fairly frustrated with the end of endgame #notmysteve. But what can you do? Well, you can write a short fix-it that circles around the question "can the Winter Soldier still be Steve's Bucky?" and then throw a little bit of "Star Trek Discovery" mixed with some "Rogue/Gambit" in there. 
> 
> And as always, not mine, no money made, no native speaker, please don't judge & comments are welcome but if you hate it, I really don't need to know that.

You go towards him and your heart is pounding. You know what he is up to and you don't like it. Not one bit. How could you? But then again, he has always been a stubborn bastard who never listens to your advise. You don't give him advise this time. Not again. 

And then he is on the platform and you need to swallow. He is taking all the stupid with him. Isn't he?  
When he is gone, those 5 seconds seem to take forever. You have an idea of whats happening to him but you don't know. Not for sure. And despite everything you hate that you don´t know.

He is taking all the stupid with him – but not the weirdness, not the unspoken disappointment and the anger you feel. You wish you could have at least kissed him good-bye.

But after that one quick kiss in Siberia, that hard, closed lipped, desperate glad to be alive affair you never tried again. Because that pain was worse than anything you ever felt.

He would never be able to touch you again. Not really. Apparently, they took that away from you with the serum. Shuri still doesn't know how that works. "Disney syndrome“ she called it, even though you're not sure, why. Whatever they gave you during one of their treatments, it reacts badly with Steve's serum. When you touch him, even when you're close to him for an extended period of time, your head explodes and you feel weakening, crumbling. They made some tests – your cells actually start doing some weird shit that you don't understand. You just know the pain. But apparently it's a thing. So naturally Steve keeps away from you. 

And Steve being Steve, he now wants to go back and create as many parallel universes as he can in which the two of you are together. That's what he says at least. But you know there is something else he is not telling you. Something the two of you are not telling each other. But you know. Because Steve is not in love with you anymore. And he doesn't know how to tell you this but that's fine because you don't know if you love him either. You don't know what love is anymore. You have these ideas, these memories. Sometimes your knowledge about what Steve and you had in 1943 feels like a dream. You remember it – but you don't feel. Not since you woke up. Not since they rebooted your brain or whatever they did. You remember looking at Steve on that helicarrier and how that triggered everything in you. How you felt Steve everywhere in your body. How your body remembered him and you just needed him to be Ok. 

When you came out of the ice, the first time you saw him. You felt – confused. New. Like you are someone else. 

But then you realized what you thought would be impossible. Namely that Steve doesn't love you either. He loves his Bucky. The old Bucky. The one that hadn't been an assassin for all those decades you quietly think but maybe that's not fair. Maybe Steve would have loved this version of his Bucky too – but he does not seem to know how to love the person who woke up in Wakanda. Shuri had been uncharacteristically quiet the first time you and him saw each other after you woke up. And you guess you now know why. She had feared this. She had feared that their science, albeit helpful – would result in someone entirely new. It's like the new arm they gave you. It might not be as evil as the old one but it is a blank slate. Just like his mind, soul, personality whatever is now. 

And when he leaves you, you know it's that. You are not his Bucky anymore and he can never be close enough to you to fall in love with who you are now. It's frustrating and hopeless. So you understand why Steve would go and do a crazy Steve thing. Of course you know. 

But it hurts. Waiting at that platform is one of the longest moments of your. 

And it's just your shit luck that right that moment, the moment in which you lose him again, makes you remember. 

And when he comes back, he is an old man and he has lived decades together with *his* Bucky. Whom he has saved, finally saved to live with and grow old together. Steve never told you what he did with the parallel version of himself. You think he might just have let that Steve die on the ice. It makes you shiver but also triggers more of the old feelings. Because your Steve loves his Bucky more than himself. Literally. 

When you see him again, that old man on the bench, you know it's too late. You know that time has run out and you will need to move on. But still. Once everyone has discreetly left, you sit next to Steve and his eyes are the same. 

You give him the gentlest of kisses – an apology, a promise, an absolution.  
And it's not so painful anymore.

 

-FIN-


End file.
